CrossFit S3

I am so excited!!!  There are tons of new things going on at S3 endurance and this nutrition blog is one of them.  I plan on sharing ideas, information and recipes with you while on a quest for better health for myself and my family.  This blog is meant to be a two way street as well.   I want to hear from you about your experiences, new information you have found and delicious recipes you have tried.

Let’s start with the basics of eating a clean diet with quality and quantity as our goal.   Some of you have been experimenting with your diet, living a Paleo lifestyle or trying the Zone Diet while others have recently joined S3 endurance and are becoming more interested in the nutrition aspect of your own sports performance.  This is why starting with the basics makes sense to me.  You can start or restart your course to better health.

Eating Paleo is not a hard concept.  It’s about choosing real food over processed food.   I have a list of foods that you can choose from and if you stick to it you can say that you are eating Paleo.  However what I find hard is actually controlling the amount we eat.  Caveman didn’t have Harris Teeter and Trader Joes to stock up on what they ate.  They were hunters and gatherers who had to go out and really find things to eat.  Our society today has everything at its finger tips.  Even the “good food” (grass-fed beef or cage free chicken and eggs) doesn’t require us to raise or hunt it ourselves.  All of this has allowed us to become accustomed to over eating.  You can even over eat Paleo food because we have an abundance just an arm’s reach away.

In order to get started (or re-started) on cleaning up your diet, there are four things I want to put out to you today.  Read over this list and evaluate them in your own life.  Implementing these four things will give you a great start to a healthy better functioning body.

Stop eating processed grains and sugars in any form: bread, rice, cereal, pasta, soda and candy. 

• The first question comes up fast “Where do I get my carbs for all the exercising I do in here?”  That brings me to my second topic!

 Start eating supersized amounts of vegetables and some fruits. 

• Yes, fruits and vegetables are carbs.  Replace all grains with more vegetables and fruits then you have ever eaten before.  Fill 2/3 of your dinner plate (the big one) with these carbs.  The second question “What do I fill the other 1/3 of my plate with?”  Here is the third topic!

Eat meat, fish and eggs as your protein source. 

• You should eat about a palm size of protein at every meal.  Protein provides the building blocks for all processes in the body, we need protein!

Eat fat!!!

• What?  We need fat to burn fat.  The body is an amazing machine and needs this just like your car needs oil.  We want to choose “good” fat or monounsaturated fat.  You will find this in Olive Oil, nuts, seeds and avocado.  After you have filled your plate with your carbs and protein take about a cupped hand of fat and add that as flavor to your meal.

These four points are a great start.  What I want you to think about from this blog today is not only the quality of food put forth in a Paleo Diet but also the quantity of food you are using to fuel your body set by the Zone Diet.  It does not matter whether you are trying to lose weight, become stronger or even gain muscle, eating the right foods in the right amounts will give you the best outcome.

We have so much to talk about and so many topics to cover in future posts.  Please post comments, I really want o hear from you. 

Here is the first recipe I want to share with you; it’s a perfect mix of carbs, protein and fat.

Paleo Stuffed Peppers

 1 diced sweet onion

2 diced green peppers (or whatever color you prefer)

3 diced celery stalks

1 cup grated cauliflower

1 lb of italian gluten free chicken sausage not in casing (found at Earth Fare)

1 lb of grass fed ground beef

1 can organic fire roasted diced tomatoes

5-6 bell peppers (red, yellow, orange and green make it colorful)

dried oregano, dried basil, garlic powder, sea salt, and black pepper to taste 

olive oil

Preheat oven to 350.  Put a large pot of water on to boil.  Cut the tops off and clean out the inside of the peppers you will be stuffing.  While waiting for the water to boil dice up all your veggies and grate the cauliflower with a food processor or a cheese grater.  Saute’ the veggies in olive oil over medium heat.  When your water comes to a boil put your whole peppers in and boil for 5 minutes.  While your peppers are boiling chop the entire package of chicken sausage and brown it with the ground beef.  Your peppers should be ready, drain them, rub them with olive oil and garlic powder and set them aside.  Combine your veggie mixture and browned meat.  Add the can of fire roasted tomatoes and all the seasoning and let simmer for 5 minutes.  Stuff your peppers with the meat mixture and place in the oven for 20 minutes.  Enjoy!